FBR to issue notices to at least 100,000 non-filers who own house >500 sq. yards, 1000+ CC car

[Abdullah719]

ISLAMABAD: With less than five days left for filing of tax returns for tax year 2018, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has decided to issue notices to at least 100,000 non-filers who own a house larger than five hundred square yards or a vehicle over 1,000 cc.

“We will definitely issues notices to all those people who are required to file returns under the Income Tax Ordinance,” FBR Chairman Shabbar Zaidi told Dawn on Saturday.

The government, he said has extended the last date several times for filing of tax returns to a maximum August 2 and announced an assets declaration scheme to facilitate them to file their returns. “We have decided to bring these non-filers into the tax net,” he said.

So far 2.1 million people have filed their tax returns, which is the highest in the FBR’s history. FBR has projected a target to enhance these returns numbers to 4m for the tax year 2019.

FBR has already compiled data of almost 8-10m individuals who own a house larger than five hundred square yards or a vehicle over 1,000 cc and bank accounts across the country. The data will be used for issuance of notices in several phases.

The FBR chairman said that government wants to increase tax returns to a reasonable level. All regional tax offices (RTOs) have also been directed to issue notices to all those people on whom name industrial and commercial utility bills are issued, he said.

The distribution companies have already been requested to identify such people and also requested to consumers for converting bills to actual users. It has been observed that several bills are being issued on the name of a single person.

As per clause 181A of the income tax law, it is imperative for commercial and industrial gas and electricity consumers to become part of the Active Taxpayers List (ATL). There are 341,000 industrial connections while more than 1m are commercial consumers’ connections.

Mr Zaidi urged people to benefit from this opportunity and file their tax returns timely to avoid difficulties, stressing that ‘return filing is compulsory under the income tax ordinance’.

As per proposed strategy, the notices will be couriered as well as sent electronically on available email address and cell number.

The first and second notices at least will be handled electronically, as per strategy. The penalty for non-filing of tax return is around Rs40,000. The notices will be selected from the available data from top rich people to less rich in the priority. Another benchmark is to focus first on big cities and then move towards small cities.

Asked whether there is any resistance for bringing these people into the tax net, Mr Zaidi said that public is now supporting the FBR. “People now want to make these people file their tax returns,” the chairman said, adding now people are more sensitive to poor tax compliance in the country.

With better enforcement, the chairman said he was expecting to achieve the ambitious revenue collection target of over Rs5 trillion for the current fiscal year. “With better enforcement, the revenue collection will be achieved without additional revenue measures,” he said.

The July 2019 revenue collection so far shows improvement except in the customs collection. He said the revenue collection in the next two months is very important, which will make clear the trend in the remaining financial year. “We have seen substantial increase in revenue collection because of revenue measures in the last budget,” he said.

The chairman said that FBR revenue collection is one of the benchmark in the IMF review.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1496651/100000-non-filers-to-be-issued-notices

 

[angrypathan]

Good

 

[Majestic_Inzi]

Its the only way a country can function.

I have another idea, land cannot be sold for cash, has to be cheque or transfer. If sell above threshold you pay tax. I cant believe how peeps in pak pay silly money for land. Money is there just dont want to pay tax...

 

[Abdullah719]

FBR seeks income details of doctors, surgeons

KARACHI: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Wednesday sought details of income of doctors and surgeons associated with Karachi’s major hospitals and health institutes who are “having thriving practice but are not paying taxes on their income”, leaving many practitioners in a quandary about objective behind the move.

A notification issued by the FBR addressing the commissioner inland revenue in Karachi showed a list of 30 private and public hospitals operating in the city to collect data of all health practitioners working in these facilities so their provided details would be “cross-matched” with the claims they made while filing withholding statements.

Talking to Dawn, FBR chairman Shabbar Zaidi said that notices were issued to document all professions and sectors. “We have started from Karachi in the first phase,” he said, adding that under the Income Tax Ordinance people having taxable income would have to file their returns. “We will send notices to all hospitals across the country to seek information about non-filer doctors,” the chairman said.

“During the task of identifying new taxpayers, it transpired that a large number of physicians and surgeons are registered with the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council and having thriving practice in Karachi but are not paying taxes on their income,” said the FBR notification. “In order to find out new taxpayers, this office has sent notices under Section 176 to the following [names of 30 hospitals] for providing information about the doctors practicing there, their income and other related matters,” it added.

The names of the health facilities identified by the FBR are: Mamji Hospital, Dow University Hospital, The Indus Hospital, National Medical Centre, Anklersaria Hospital, Ibn-e-Seena Hospital, Life Care Consultant Clinic, Karachi Adventist Hospital, Nehal Hospital, A.O. Clinic, Dar-ul-Sehat Hospital, Agha Khan University Hospital, Usmania University Hospital, Jinnah Hospital, OMI Hospital, Fatmiya Hospital, Zulekha Hospital, Mid City Hospital, Ashfaq Memorial Hospital, Habib Medical Centre, Hashmanis Hospital, Saifee Hospital, Healthcare Hospital, Park Lane Hospital, Liaquat National Hospital, Taj Medical Complex, Ziauddin Medical Centre Hospital and SIUT.

A senior Sindh health official said that he had “just heard” about the FBR move but not sure about its target professionals and exact objective. He said the doctors and surgeons associated with both public and private facilities paid tax on their income regularly and in most of the organisations it was deducted at-force while paying salaries to them.

A senior member of the Pakistan Medical Association, when contacted, avoided commenting on the issue, saying the body or professionals associated with it had not yet received any such request or warning from the FBR so it was not appropriate to discuss this at this point of time.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1497387/fbr-seeks-income-details-of-doctors-surgeons

 

[Abdullah719]

100% tax for non-filer parents paying over Rs200,000 annually

Parents who didn’t file their tax returns in the latest fiscal year will have to pay more than 100% in taxes if their children’s school fee exceeds Rs200,000 per year.

Under the current tax regime, parents whose children’s fee exceeds Rs200,000 per year have to pay an advance income tax of 5%. If you are a filer, you can claim refund on this tax when you file your income tax returns. This advance tax has been abolished in the new budget for 2020-21.

Spoiler

The government wants to penalise those who were supposed to file tax returns as per the law, but didn’t do so, said federal minister Hammad Azhar said on Friday while unveiling the federal budget for 2020-21.

Anyone earning Rs400,000 per year or more is required to file tax returns and those who earn more than Rs600,000 per year are taxed based on their income bracket.

This decision to charge more than 100% tax from non-filers has been taken to gain the tax payments from the non-filer school owners so that tax revenues can be increased.

An ambiguous statement by federal minister Hammad Azhar caused confusion on whether the tax is meant for non-filer parents or school owners. A member of the FBR media team later confirmed to SAMAA Digital that the tax applies to parents. Any error is regretted.

https://www.samaa.tv/money/2020/06/...paying-annual-school-fees-exceeding-rs200000/

 

[MenInG]

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has served notices to 832,000 non-filers for failing to declare their tax returns during the current fiscal year after receiving over 2.2 million income tax returns along with a paid tax of Rs35 billion so far, The News reported on Sunday.

The Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Revenue Dr Waqar Masood told The News that the total number of filed returns were recorded at 2,215,125 (2.215 million) along with a paid tax amount of Rs35 billion so far.

Read more: FBR permits taxpayers seeking extension to file income tax returns

“The paid tax amount along with the income tax returns has doubled in the current fiscal year,” he added.

The revenue board had received a total of 2.7 million tax returns during the last fiscal 2019-20, leaving a gap, so notices have been sent to those failing to file their income tax returns.

66,000 individuals sought extension from FBR
Official sources revealed that there were 66,000 individuals who had sought a double extension for 15 days.

Despite the extension in the date to file the tax returns, there were 832,000 filers who neither filed their returns nor sought extension.

“We have served them tax notices to ascertain why they did not bother to file their returns,” official FBR sources said, adding that the law would take its course if the reply was not received or was found unsatisfactory.

The FBR has achieved over 4% revenue growth in the first five months of the current fiscal year and for achieving the desired tax collection target, it requires 40 per cent growth in the remaining seven months.

The FBR had envisioned a tax collection target of Rs4963 billion and the tax machinery fixed target of 45% for the first half of the current fiscal year.

The efforts are underway to achieve the desired results as the FBR’s target of December 2020 showed significance.

Challenge for incumbent government
It is a challenge for the incumbent regime that the FBR’s tax collection remained flat at Rs4 trillion in the last two fiscal years 2018-19 and 2019-20.

Read more: To meet FBR target, tax imposed on sale of new cars within 90 days of purchase

The last fiscal year could be blamed on the eruption of the coronavirus pandemic for the flat revenue growth because, in the pre-coronavirus scenario, the FBR was achieving revenue growth in the range of 16 to 17 per cent that nosedived substantially after the outbreak of deadly Coronavirus.

This year, there is a twofold increase in income tax paid with the annual returns.

The number of Income Tax Returns for the previous year till the same period was 1.98 million and the tax paid was Rs16 billion.

 

[MenInG]

Hackers have attacked Pakistan’s largest data centre run by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and managed to break the hyper-V software by Microsoft, bringing down all the official websites operated by the tax machinery.

“There has been a national crisis like situation since 2.00 am Saturday morning and we may not be out of the woods by Sunday evening,” a senior official said while explaining the gravity of the situation to The Express Tribune on condition of anonymity.

The FBR’s official version was awaited till the filing of the story. “The FBR’s website is temporarily down for scheduled maintenance,” read the website when it was opened.
However, the authority issued a general press release regarding in-progress service optimisation activities at the FBR House Data Center, Islamabad.

The FBR explained that the technical team is currently migrating services. The completion of this migration shall result in the increased overall productivity of FBR IT Operations. This migration is necessary to facilitate the up gradation of the system in order to enhance the best services to our clients, the statement added.

“The stakeholders, who are being provided services from the data centre, are informed that there were unforeseen anomalies during the migration process, which has resulted in the unavailability of services, since early hours of the last night. The FBR team is ensuring restoration of services as soon as possible

to keep the downtime to a minimum. This activity is expected to be completed in the next 48 hours.”
It further stated, “FBR regrets and apologises for any inconvenience this may have caused and appreciates continued cooperation of the stakeholders.”

The official said the cyberattack has affected the virtual environment of the data centre.
“This time the data centre’s virtual machines were attacked and the attackers managed to exploit the weakest link, which is the hyper-V software by Microsoft Inc,” he added.

He said Pakistan has contacted Microsoft that is helping to recover it from the attack.
“It is cyber terrorism on our Independence Day,” said the official, adding that the attackers have not yet been identified.

“Since the virtual environment has been damaged, we are trying to create a new virtual environment that may take up to two days,” said another official from the information technology department.
“We are trying to restore the websites by tomorrow afternoon and the essential data centre by tomorrow evening, as we do not want to cause more damage by shifting data in haste.”

The sources said the hackers were making attempts to break the data rooms for the last few days and there was also a warning issued that a serious cyber-attack might take place soon. However, the FBR ignored those warnings and finally the hackers managed to take over some of the data.

Another source said the FBR came to know about the attack after the attackers started affecting the environment. The last serious attack on the FBR’s data centre happened on March 23 last year, which remained unsuccessful. But this time they managed to creep in the system, they added.

There has been a national crisis-like situation since 2.00 am yesterday and the country’s shipments have also started getting affected due to the shutdown of all FBR websites and data centres, said the sources.

The attacks come at a time when the government is reviewing a legal proposal to give the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) access to the FBR’s database.

The FBR’s database is the largest that carries information of trillions of rupees transactions, the details of the wealth and income and expenditures of its citizens.

It also has details about their various personal and business transactions due to various types of withholding taxes that are being deducted on these transactions.

After knowing about the attack, the FBR issued an internal warning: it “experienced a severe cyberattack on our data centers. All applications have been shut down and need support from all teams”.

The sources said the FBR’s technology and data backbone –the Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL) –is also down and compromised. The PRAL being a technology company was required to erect firewalls to protect its data centre but it failed to perform the task diligently.

The PRAL administration has gone haywire and appointments in the most important organisation have been made on the basis of favouritism.

Some of the board members instead of restricting themselves to the policy matters are indulged in operational issues that have resulted in grouping with the organisation, the sources said.

Sources pointed out that there was a need to fix responsibility on breach of security system. The FBR has also recently hired a chief information officer for better utilisation and protection of data, the sources added. They said due to the severity of the attack a pressure is also building on the Customs.

The consignments are stuck up at border stations which are of fresh vegetables and courier consignments apart from other goods. People are unable to get the benefit of Active Taxpayers List due to disconnection from the data source.